
THE PURPOSE AND WORK 



Prince Society. 




THE PURPOSE AND WORK 



OF 



THE PRINCE SOCIETY. 



BY 



THE REV. EDMUND F. SLAFTER, D.D., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY. 




3Soston: 

PUBLISHED BY THE PRINCE SOCIETY. 
1890. 



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T/te follotving letter of the Rev. Dr. Shifter, Prefident of the 
Prince Society, addreffcd to a correfpondcnt in anfwer to an inquiry 
as to its piirpofe and work, is prijited by order of the Council for 
the information of any who may zvifJt to make fiuiilar inquiries. 



Boston, i8 Somerset Street, 

My dear Sir, — I am happy to give you the information which 
you requeft in your favor of the 5 th inftant. 

The Prince Society was formed in Bofton in 1858, and after 
tefting its pra6lical working by the iffue of feven volumes, it afked 
and obtained an a6l of incorporation, under the laws of Maffa- 
chufetts, on the i8th of March, 1874. Its name was affumed in 
honor of the Rev. Thomas Prince, who flourifhed one hundred 
and fifty years ago, as a difbinguifhed antiquary and hiftorian in 
New England. The obje6l of the Society, as ftated in its charter, 
is, " for the purpofe of preferving and extending the knowledge of 
American hiftory, by editing and printing fuch manufcripts, rare 
tra6ls and volumes as are moflly confined in their ufe to hifborical 
fludents and public libraries," 

Every careful hifborical ftudent is fully aware that there exifts 
in this country and in England a mafs of matter in the form .of 
legal documents, charters, tra6ts, and letters, which are inacceffible, 
or of very great rarity, but neverthelefs indifpenfable to a corre6l 

knowledge 



The Prince Society. 



knowledge of our early hiftory. While thefe papers are fcattered, 
and fome of them perhaps unknown, they are not only liable, but 
pretty fure to be overlooked, and in confequence the hiftorian is 
equally fure to fall into error. 

It is the objeft of this Society to colle6l together thefe papers, 
fragments of a complete whole, and print them in volumes, care- 
fully and fully annotated, fo that the hiftorical ftudent may have 
the whole fubje6l before him at once. The Andros tra6ls, colle6led 
and printed by the Prince Society, furnifh a good illuftration. The 
difficulties which Sir Edmund Andros encountered here in Bofton, 
refulted in a fmall revolution. There were of courfe two fides to 
the queftion. Charges and counter-charges, petitions and declara- 
tions, narratives and difcourfes, were iffued in great numbers on 
both fides. After the lapfe of two hundred years, the hiftorian 
cannot form a correct judgment on the merits of the controverfy 
without examining the whole of thefe documents, which, thanks 
to the Prince Society, he can now do in the three handfome 
volumes in which thefe papers have been reproduced. Before this 
colle6lion was made, it is not probable that any of our hiftorians 
had ever feen one tenth of them ; and their opinions, whether cor- 
re6l or otherwise, mufl: have been formed on a partial knowledge 
of the fubje6t. 

It is obvious that volumes like thefe are not fuited to the popu- 
lar tafte, and no publifher could afford to put them upon the market. 
The Society was formed to do what could not be done except by 
fome fijch affociated effort. The members, now numbering about 
one hundred and feventy-five, mutually bear the expenfe, and each 
is entitled to a fingle copy. The editorial work is gratuitous. In 
type and paper, and all that relates to mechanical execution, the 
volumes are intended to be after the higheft ftyle of American art. 

We have faid that the volumes are publiJJicd, but it would be 
more accurate to fay that they are printed for the members of the 
Society. They are not fold outfide of that limit. But there is no 

difpofition 



The Prince Society, 5 

difpofition to print only a fmall number for the purpofe of render- 
ing them rare and expenfive. Any perfon defirous of having them 
will find no obftacle in the way of becoming a member, and thus 
availing himfelf of the opportunity of receiving them at their 
a6tual coft. 

While the Affociation is conduced on the mutual principle, the 
paramount motive of the members is not merely to fecure a rare 
volume for themfelves, but the publication of works which fhall 
be, in the beft fenfe, contributions to our knowledge of American 
hiftory. Twenty volumes have already been iffued, all of which 
are of this chara6ler. One entitled " Wood's New England Prof- 
pe6t," gives us a picture of hfe in Boflon in 1634. Another, "John 
Dunton's Letters," furniflies an equally graphic tableau of our 
Commonwealth in 1686. Then follows the " Hutchinfon Papers," 
a colle61:ion of letters and hiftorical documents relating to events 
ftretching through the firft fixty years of the hiftory of Maffa- 
chufetts Bay. The " Andros Trafts " I have already defcribed. 
I need only add that the work contains a fine fteel engraving of 
Sir Edmund Andros, executed for the Society, the firft and only 
engraving ever iffued of this diftinguiflied hiftorical chara6ter. 
It contains likewife a fteel engraving of Increafe Mather, and two 
heliotype copies of old engravings of Mather, at the age of eighty 
and eighty-five refpe6lively. 

Another volume entitled " Sir William Alexander and American 
Colonization," gives a complete hiftory of the efforts of this Scotch 
nobleman in planting colonies in this country, efpecially in Nova 
Scotia and on Long Ifland, from 162 1 to 1641. It has an engraved 
portrait of Sir William Alexander, from an old plate, in the pof- 
feffion of Henry G. Bohn, of London. 

"John Wheelwright" is another monograph, containing the 
famous difcourfe delivered in Bofton, January 16, 1636, for which 
he was banifhed from Maffachufetts. It is printed from the only 
complete and contemporaneous manufcript copy known. The 

volume 



The Prince Society, 



volume contains alfo his Mercuriiis Americanus, a defence of him- 
felf againft his perfecutors, printed in England in 1645. I^^ ^^^ 
memoir we have a careful analyfis of the whole fubjeft of liberty 
of confcience as then regarded by the authorities in Maffachufetts 
Bay, and a full difcuffion of the genuinenefs of the famous Wheel- 
wright deed of 1629. 

" The Voyages of the Northmen to America " contains a tranf- 
lation of the Icelandic Sagas, from which we derive all our authentic 
information in regard to the vifits of the Scandinavians to this 
country in the laft part of the tenth and firft part of the eleventh 
centuries. It contains an explanatory and hiftorical introdudlion 
and valuable notes. 

The "Voyages of Samuel de Champlain " are contained in three 
volumes. They were never before tranflated into Englifh. A Me- 
moir fills moft of one volume, the firft full and complete perfonal 
hiftory of this diftinguifhed explorer ever publifhed. The voy- 
ages include not only the narratives of all the explorations made 
by Champlain into the then unbroken forefts of America, on the 
coaft of New England, on the fliores of Nova Scotia and New 
Brunfwick, in the Gulf and on the River of St. Lawrence, of the 
founding of Quebec, the difcovery of Lake Champlain, the ex- 
ploration of the Ottawa, of Lake Huron, and of Lake Ontario, of 
his journey into the heart of the prefent ftate of New York, but 
likewife the whole of his minute, ample, and invaluable defcriptions 
of the character and habits, mental, moral, and phyfical, of the 
various favage tribes with which he came in conta6t. They furnifh 
to the ftudent of hiftory and to the ftudent of ethnology moft 
valuable information, unfurpaffed in richnefs and extent, and 
which cannot be obtained from any other fource. The volumes 
are heavily annotated, containing in all over a thoufand notes. 
They contain two portraits of Champlain, and heliotype copies of 
all the illuftrations in his original work, publifhed in French in 
16 1 3, over thirty in number. 

The 



The Prince Society, 



The " New Englifh Canaan of Thomas Morton " is the firft 
reprint with annotations of this valuable but fingular book. It 
was firft printed in 1637, and contains many ftri(5lures upon the 
planters of Maffachufetts Bay. The introdu6tion and the notes 
are the refult of careful ftudy, are rich and teeming with informa- 
tion, and illuftrate fome obfcure paffages in that early period of 
our hiftory. 

" Sir Walter Ralegh and his Colony in America " elucidates 
the attempt in 1584 to plant a colony in North CaroHna. It con- 
tains the Reports of the feveral expeditions fent out, and is care- 
fully annotated after the general plan and ftyle of the volumes 
already mentioned. 

The " Voyages of Peter Efprit Radiffon " are colle6led and here 
printed for the firft time. Though containing valuable information 
about the Indians of North America in the feventeenth century, the 
manufcripts feem for over two hundred years to have efcaped the 
notice of fcholars till they were difcovered in the Bodleian Library 
and Britifh Mufeum, and copied for this volume. 

The monograph on " Captain John Mafon, the Founder of New 
Hampfhire," contains a carefully prepared memoir of that enterprif- 
ing and public-fpirited man, and an account of his fettlements in 
New England, with copies of his charters, and his voluminous cor- 
refpondence, much of which has never before been printed. 

The three volumes on " Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Prov- 
ince of Maine " are of great value in illuftrating the early hiftory 
of this country, and particularly of the State of Maine. The edi- 
tor perfonally vifited the various places in England in which 
members of the Gorges family were fettled, and gathered valuable 
matter to be ufed in this work, much of which is new to hiftori- 
cal ftudents. The letters are of very great value. A very fmall 
portion of them have either been printed or referred to by hiftorical 
writers. 

The publications of the Society, as I have faid, now number twenty 
volumes. Several others are in preparation by competent editors. 

It 



,^ 4 IS'e)? 



8 TAe Prince Society, 

It is the purpofe of the Council, as in the paft fo in the future, 
to iffue no work which may not be referred to as an hiftorical 
authority on the fubje6l of which it treats. 

When a perfon becomes a member of the Society he is required 
to take at the price fixed all the books iffued after he becomes a 
member, and he may at his option take any volumes previoufly 
iffued which the Society may have on hand. The average expenfe 
of the volumes is about five dollars each. They are bound only 
in paper, fo that each member may confult his own tafte as to 
the binding of his own volumes. Memberfhip may be terminated 
at any time on the conditions ftated in Article III. of the Con- 
ftitution. Membership involves no expenfe except that in payment 
of the volumes as they are iffued from time to time. It is the 
intention of the Council to ifTue at leaft one volume annually. 

Trufting that I have anfwered your inquiries fully, 
I am, my dear Sir, 

Yours, very truly, 

Edmund F. Slafter. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



011 710 358 4 t 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




